EDITOR IS DISMISSED OVER TRUTH OF ARTICLE

MONTPELIER, Vt. - The managing editor of the Barre-Montpelier Times Argus
was fired today because the existence of a heroin-addicted teenage
prostitute he wrote about could not be verified.

The newspaper's publisher, R. John Mitchell, said readers had questioned
the article, which ran on Sept. 15.

"It was brought to our attention that some of the details of the story were
not accurate or true, and we checked them out," Mr. Mitchell said. "They
were not true."

The managing editor, Scott Fletcher, stood by the article today.

"Everything that's in that story is verifiable from the notes that I took
on our interview," Mr. Fletcher said.

The article describes an encounter with a 16-year-old in a park in
Montpelier. It suggests that she was propositioning men to pay for heroin.

Neither Mr. Fletcher nor anyone else has been able to find the girl since
the article ran. "Just the nature of this young woman and her chosen
profession makes it practically impossible," Mr. Fletcher said. "I heard
anecdotally as soon as the story came out she moved on."

When the girl's existence could not be confirmed, Mr. Mitchell and the
general manager for the paper decided to dismiss Mr. Fletcher.

The Times Argus has a daily circulation of 11,232 and is owned by Mr.
Mitchell's family.

The incident comes two decades after a Washington Post reporter, Janet
Cooke, had to return a Pulitzer Prize for making up an article about an
8-year-old heroin addict.